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The Runaway Bride (TV story)
The Runaway Bride 'is the 2006 Christmas Special of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T. Davies, directed by Euros Lyn and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Overview To be added Synopsis Donna, a middle aged woman who is on the verge of marrying her fiancé, Lance, finds herself transported within the confines of the TARDIS, much to the shock of the obnoxious Bride, as well as the Doctor, who has just recently had to get over the loss of Rose Tyler. The Time Lord learns that Donna is in some way linked to an alien plot to destroy the Earth. With time ticking away and the Doctor having to face off against a small army of robotic Santa's once again, can he prevent the evil Empress of the Racnoss' plot to eradicate the world? Plot The episode opens with a panning-shot around the Earth before zooming down to a church in London on Christmas Eve where the bride, Donna Noble begins her walk down the aisle toward her fiancé Lance Bennett. About halfway down the aisle, however, Donna's body is consumed by a bright golden light and disappears through the ceiling to the shock and bewilderment of her friends and family. The light carries her all the way into space and deposits her inside the TARDIS, in front of the dumbstruck Doctor. Lost for words and an explaination, Donna accuses the Doctor of orchestrating the entire incident with her rival Nerys, before marching over to the doors only to be confronted by the fact that she's in deep space. Still at a loss, the Doctor tries analysing Donna but she slaps him and orders him to take her back to the church. While he sets the TARDIS for Chiswick, Donna spots Rose Tyler's shirt and accuses him again of being a serial kidnapper, unaware that he'd only just lost her. Back at the church, everybody is in a frenzy with Lance and Donna's parents Sylvia and Geoff wondering where she's gone. Landing in a random alley in London, Donna is overwhelmed by the TARDIS' dimensional transcendentalism and runs off, refusing to go back to it when the Doctor asks. Trying and failing to hail a taxi (and being forced out of one when the Doctor can't pay), the Doctor sonics a phone booth so Donna can call her family and gets some money from a cash point. As he returns to Donna, he spots a brass band disguised as Santas wandering the street before he turns to see Donna getting into a taxi and being driven off by another masked figure. Remembering the Roboforms from the previous Christmas, the Doctor distracts them by causing the cash to eject lots of money, causing a collection frenzy among Christmas shoppers while he runs back to the TARDIS. When it becomes clear to Donna that the driver is taking her somewhere else, she pulls off it's hood and the mask drops away, revealing the robot beneath. She then starts banging on the windows for help from other drivers. Returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor gives chase up the motorway; keeping pace with the taxi with the doors facing the vehicle, the Doctor unlocks Donna's door and tells her to jump across to him. The taxi pulls away and the Doctor speeds up, causing the console to go up in a parade of sparks. Despite her reluctance, Donna opens the door and, deciding to trust the Doctor like Rose did, leaps over to the TARDIS and is caught by the Doctor before the TARDIS flies off and lands on a highrise rooftop. Overlooking the city, the Doctor tries to fathom out why the Roboforms wanted Donna while she explains her job at H.C. Clements, the security firm where she met Lance and asked him to marry her six months prior (though she tries to claim that she was the recipient of the persistent affection). Deciding it's time to return to the family, the Doctor and Donna go to the venue where the reception was planned to find it in full swing. Everybody is shocked to see Donna and start bombarding her with questions but she manages to silence them with crocodile tears. As the party resumes, this time with Donna involved, the Doctor uses someone's phone to research H.C. Clements and discovers it to be a subsidiary of Torchwood. Following this, he looks at a recording of Donna's disappears and is shocked to learning it was the result of Huon particles; his shock turns to horror when he realising that this means the Bio-damper he'd made Donna wear won't conceal her. Spotting Roboforms approaching the main entrance, the Doctor and Donna find their exits blocked on all sides. Suddenly, the Doctor remembers their strategy from last Christmas involving Christmas trees and ushers everybody away from all the trees in the room. Suddenly, the decorations start levitating off the trees and fly down at the people and exploding. A mass panic occurs as everybody makes for cover; in the pandemonium, the Doctor, having ducked behind the loudspeaker, confronts the Roboforms before inserting his screwdriver into the sound system and causing feedback that causes the robots to fall apart. Finding that the robots are also subject to remote control, the Doctor locks their control signal onto something in the sky. Up above, a creature sat at the heart of a start-like craft made of webbing observes the Doctor and Donna down below. Heading to Donna's office, the Doctor tells Donna that she was pulled inside the TARDIS when the Huon particles she was infested with magnetised with those inside the TARDIS. Looking at the building blueprints, the Doctor finds a lower basement placed there by Torchwood and heads down to it with Donna and Lance in tow. Discovering that the entire section is built beneath the Thames Flood Barrier, the Doctor leads them to the main laboratory and marvels at the science in there, the manufacture of liquid Huon particles using water from the Thames including the particles in Donna's body. Refusing to let the particles do any harm to Donna, they are addressed on loudspeakers by the creature from the craft in orbit. A wall opens up to unveil a 30-foot laser-drilled pit to the center of the Earth. At the Doctor's instance, the creature teleports down, revealing itself to be the Empress of the Racnoss, a giant, red humanoid-spider hybrid. While the Doctor confronts the Empress about her survival from a war that killed most of her race during the dark times, Lance, who snuck away earlier, emerges behind the Empress with an axe. While Donna keeps the Empress distracted, Lance gets close enough with the axe but doesn't deliver any blows, revealing to Donna and the Doctor that he and the Empress were partners in the entire scheme, with Lance pretending to love Donna and agreeing to marry her so she could serve as the incubator of the Huon energies, drugging her with more particles over the six month span. While Donna sits with this revelation, the Doctor requests answers from the Empress but she just has her Roboforms take aim on him, so he uses the Huon particles in Donna's body to bring the TARDIS to them and it materialises around them as the robots fire on them. While the TARDIS travels back through time to find what the Racnoss hid at the Earth's core, the Empress, having lost Donna, orders the Roboforms to force Lance to consume the particles himself and become another key. Arriving 4.6 billion years in the past, the Doctor and Donna look out at the just-emerging Solar System waiting for the first rock that the Earth was formed around. Suddenly, a Racnoss web emerges through the dust cloud and all the other rocks and dust and elements start to form the Earth around it. In the future, the Empress, having dosed Lance with enough particles, starts dragging the TARDIS back to the lab. The Doctor uses the extrapolator to knock them a small distance away. While the Doctor unravels the Empress' plan, Donna is captured by a Roboform and the Doctor quickly encounters one in the hatch to the surface. Donna and Lance are soon suspended by web above the pit, both with enough Huon particles to awaken the Racnoss lying dormant at the bottom. To provide sustenance for her children, the Empress cuts Lance free of the web, sending him plummeting into the pit to be devoured. Meanwhile, the Webstar comes down from orbit and hovers over London before it starts firing streaks of electricity on the masses in the streets. As the Empress revels, the Doctor, who had managed to overpower the robot, removes the disguise he'd taken from his assailant and frees Donna. Offering the Empress one last chance to stand down, promising safe harbour to her and her children, the Racnoss refuses so the Doctor ominously reveals his origins to the horrified creature, the Time Lords having had vanquished the Racnoss during the war. Solemn fury on his face, the Doctor thrusts the Roboforms' explosive Christmas ornaments throughout the lab and destroys all the underground flood barriers, causing water from the Thames to flood into the lab and drown the Racnoss emerging from the pit. While the Empress screams, Donna tells the Doctor to stop and convinces him to leave before they too drown. The Empress transports back to the Webstar just as the military roll in below and open fire on the defenseless craft, destroying it completely and killing the Empress. Making it up top, Donna points out to the Doctor that his solution has resulted in the draining of the entire river, to their hilarity. Returning Donna home in the TARDIS and confirming that the Huon energies are completely gone, the Doctor offers Donna the chance to come with him but she declines, stating that in spite of the wonders she'd seen that day, she was terrified by how far the Doctor had gone to stop the Empress. Despite this, as he leaves, Donna tells him to find someone that can stop him when he starts going too far. Voicing a hope to meet again someday, the Doctor disappears into the TARDIS (after three interruptions from Donna) and the ship takes off into the sky as Donna goes back home. Cast * The Doctor - David Tennant * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate * Empress - Sarah Parish * Lance Bennett - Don Gilet * Geoff Noble - Howard Attfield * Sylvia Noble - Jacqueline King * Vicar - Trevor Georges * Taxi Driver - Glen Wilson * Nerys - Krystal Archer * Rhodri - Rhodri Meilir * Little Girl - Zafirah Boateng * Robot Santa - Paul Kasey Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Runaway Bride'' page on '''Doctor Who Website